People who are Blind or have low-vision face unique challenges when using Cloud services. Google recently led a workshop to share how the company is improving the accessibility of its technologies. Some of Google’s improvements to its Android and Chrome products are listed below. You can read the full list on Google’s Official Blog.
- Google OS now supports text-to-speech voice
- Google made it easier to access content in your Google Drive using a keyboard
- developers can use Google to integrate speech recognition capabilities into their apps
- Google released a new Help Center Guide specifically for blind and low-vision users to ease the transition to using Google Apps
- Braille support has been expanded on Google Drive for Android, making it easier to read and edit your documents
- Screen magnification is now built into Android 4.2 (users can triple-tap to magnify the screen)
These updates to Chrome, Google Apps, and Android will help create a better overall experience for our blind and low-vision users, but there’s still room for improvement. Looking ahead, Google says they are focused on the use of accessibility APIs that makes it easier for third-party developers to create accessible web applications. Google strives to push the state of the art forward with technologies like speech recognition and text-to-speech.
You can read more about these updates here.
